Anna Netrebko, hot on the heels of her recording of Strauss’s Four Last Songs, heads the cast of Deutsche Grammophon's new Iolanta. Tchaikovsky’s seldom performed opera, which had its premiere on the same night as The Nutcracker, is relatively neglected. However, this recording, and Netrebko’s championing of the work on stages around the world, will change perceptions. Conductor Emmanuel Villaume finds the tender wonderment at the heart of this beautiful work, and the cast is strong from top to bottom. As Iolanta, the blind Princess of the title, Netrebko dominates the opera, singing with unfailing beauty of tone and dramatic intent. She herself has said that the music of Iolanta is a source of joy – and on this hearing recording, it surely is.

As I write this, the sounds of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House can be heard in the Covent Garden orchestra pit, rehearsing for Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer, under the baton of Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons. His new recording of this opera, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and NDR Choir, must rank as the finest modern recording. The orchestra hurtles into the overture and Nelsons never lets the pace flag; there is tension even in the reflective moments, and when he gives the orchestra its head, it is genuinely thrilling. Terje Stensvold is vocally lighter as the Dutchman than we would expect, but he knows his way around the role, and there is a welcome balance between his Dutchman and Kwangchul Youn's Daland. Anja Kampe is magnificent in one of Wagner’s most difficult soprano roles, and with artists of the calibre of Christopher Ventris (Erik), Jane Henschel (Mary) and Russell Thomas (Steersman), this recording has everything going for it.

Diana Damrau is singing Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor to acclaim across the world at the moment. In this recording, a live performance, she takes ownership of the role. Completely in control of Lucia’s vocal pyrotechnics, without ever using them to show off, she understands the role perfectly, and uses the decoration to express emotion and growing insanity to chilling effect. She is surrounded by a stellar cast including Joseph Calleja, who sings with grace and unfailing style. The final scene, which includes the oft-cut Wolf’s Crag scene, gives Calleja’s Edgardo some additional dimension, and allows him a moment opposite Ludovic Tezier's Enrico (smoothly sung and thoughtfully characterized). Jesús López Cobos conducts his second recorded Lucia, leading a detailed and melancholy account without any loss of brilliance where it is needed.

When Riccardo, the hero of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, is warned that someone will kill him at his masked ball, he really should take heed. For one thing is certain in opera – parties are bad for your health.

Mozart certainly realized the potency of parties. In the masked ball in Don Giovanni the anarchic Giovanni tries to seduce Zerlina to the sound of three dances performed simultaneously. When he’s caught he barely escapes with his life. Less violent but equally arresting is the Act II finale to Così fan tutte, where Dorabella and Fiordiligi’s marriage to their ‘Albanian’ lovers collapses in startling revelations and recriminations.

Bellini and Donizetti were particularly drawn to the disastrous wedding party. Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor arrives like an avenging fury to prevent Lucia’s forced marriage, and Elvira in I puritani goes mad when her groom disappears. But it didn’t always have to be a wedding – surely the most devastating bel canto party of all comes in Act II of Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia, where the anti-heroine poisons six noblemen – including, unwittingly, her son.

Verdi loved operatic parties. They gave him the opportunity to deploy great entertainment music, and he knew that the best way to deliver curses and accusations is against a background of frivolity. Take Monterone’s chilling curse inRigoletto during the Duke’s hedonistic banquet – or Alfredo’s terrible denunciation of Violetta in La traviata, amid Spanish dances and gambling. Parties also prove perfect environments for murder, in Un ballo in maschera and also in Les Vêpres siciliennes, where Guy de Montfort survives an assassination attempt at a ball in Act III only (innocently) to precipitate a massacre at his son’s wedding in Act V.

Terrible secrets are revealed at celebrations in Wagner’s operas; the most dramatic comes in Götterdämmerung, when Brünnhilde breaks off her forced wedding to Gunther to accuse Siegfried of treachery. But this is nothing to the chaos of King Herod’s feast in Richard Strauss’s Salome, which culminates in the heroine embracing John the Baptist’s severed head.

Russian operatic parties are powder kegs waiting for an inevitable spark. Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin brings about disaster at Tatyana’s name-day ball by taunting his friend Lensky, who challenges him to a duel. Marfa in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride is poisoned at her engagement party (by an admirer who believes he’s administering a love potion) and then forced to renounce her fiancé and become the Tsar’s wife. But the prize for the most debauched Russian party undoubtedly goes to the drunken wedding orgy in Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, where Katerina and Sergei are arrested for the murder of Katerina’s first husband.

There are plenty of gruesome celebrations in 20th-century opera, too. It’s a dance that finally sends Berg's Wozzeck into mental collapse, while the elegant party in Act III of his Lulu ends with a stock exchange crash and the heroine fleeing the police. Schoenberg (Moses und Aron), Schreker (Die Gezeichneten) and Henze (Die Bassariden) all explored the destructive power of orgies, and Britten provides a terrifying picture of mass hysteria in the Act III dance of Peter Grimes. Festivities don’t get any better in our own century: in Turnage's Anna Nicole the heroine’s attempt to host the party of a lifetime ends with her husband’s death and ultimately her ruin.

All this destruction begs the question - can a party in opera ever be enjoyable? Well, the townspeople in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg have a good time (apart from Beckmesser). And if Sharp-Ears’s wedding in Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixenis anything to go by, animals in opera are able to celebrate with the unadulterated joy that so often eludes their human counterparts. But it’s operetta that chiefly celebrates the more cheerful side of partying: the ensembles in praise of friendship and champagne in Johan Strauss II's Die Fledermaus and the final scenes of Franz Lehár's Die lustige Witwe remind us that parties can – just occasionally – actually be joyful occasions.

Un ballo in maschera runs 18 December 2014–17 January 2015. Tickets are still available. The production is a co-production with Theater Dortmund and Scottish Opera and is given with generous philanthropic support from the Royal Opera House Endowment Fund.

La traviata runs 18 May–4 July 2015. Tickets go on general sale 27 January 2015. The production is generously supported by Rolex.

Don Giovanni runs 12 June–3 July 2015. Tickets go on general sale 31 March 2015. The production is given with generous philanthropic support from the Royal Opera House Endowment Fund and is a co-production with Houston Grand Opera.

With its story of family feuds and romantic rivalry, The Bride of Lammermoor is particularly appropriate for opera. Donizetti and his librettist Cammarano streamlined the drama, omitting complicated subplots, political references and many of the characters (such as Lucy’s tyrannical mother) to focus on the lovers Lucia and Edgardo. Donizetti heightened Lucia’s plight by writing her an extended mad scene in Act III (not included in Scott's version), and provided Edgardo with a suitably operatic suicide, rather than Scott's ignominious fall into quicksand.

Abbé Prévost’s tale of a young man who sacrifices everything for love hasn't been out of print since its first publication in 1731. The novel has inspired several operatic adaptations – all markedly different from Prévost’s original. Massenet focussed not on the hero Des Grieux but on the hedonistic, tender Manon, depicting her volatile character in arias ranging from the mournful ‘Adieu, notre petite table’ to the flamboyant ‘Obéissons’. Puccini concentrated on the ‘desperate passion’ of the lovers, giving them music of Wagnerian intensity that makes their love seem far nobler than that of Prévost’s ill-matched couple.

Alexandre Dumas fils’s first ‘hit’, the novel and subsequent (1852) play La Dame aux camélias, have gained lasting fame in Verdi’s operatic setting. Verdi makes his heroine Violetta more impressive than Dumas’ Marguerite, minimizing the character’s vulgar aspects to concentrate on her moral dignity and tenderness. His hero Alfredo is far more likeable than Dumas’ rather priggish hero Armand, and his one act of cruelty to Violetta is impetuous rather than calculated. His, and his father’s, reconciliation with Violetta in Act III is one of Verdi’s most moving scenes. Small wonder the opera is now far more popular than Dumas’ novel.

Mérimée was inspired to write his popular novella after his 1830 visit to Spain, where he studied gypsy culture. Bizet and his librettists set Part III, detailing the tragic love affair of the soldier Don José and the seductive gypsy Carmen. They slightly softened the story, enhancing its romantic elements by adding the dashing torero Escamillo (based on a minor character in Mérimée) and the innocent young Micaëla; so creating two love triangles. Bizet brilliantly conveys the Iberian atmosphere of Mérimée’s novella through his music, particularly Carmen’s sensual Habanera, Séguidille and Danse bohemienne.

Goethe’s epistolary novel about a young man who falls hopelessly in love with a woman betrothed (later married) to another was a runaway success – so much so that the book later embarrassed him. Massenet turns Goethe’s examination of obsessive passion into a romantic tragedy. He gives his heroine Charlotte two arias in Act III that reveal her genuine love (never confirmed in the novel) for Werther, and provides his hero with an ecstatic death scene in which he is united with Charlotte – in stark contrast to the literary Werther’s lonely, botched suicide.

Tchaikovsky loved Pushkin’s verse-novel, which was already a literary classic when he began his great opera. To some degree he stuck close to Pushkin when constructing his libretto, sometimes barely altering the original text. However, he avoided the dry, witty tone that predominates in the verse-novel and instead sympathized wholeheartedly with the romantic passion of Tatyana (expressed movingly in her Letter Scene) and the melancholy of Lensky (in his aria ‘Kuda, Kuda’).

Henri Murger’s satirical autobiographical tales of bohemian life in 1840s Paris brought the struggling writer to public attention and international acclaim. Puccini’s opera is only loosely based on Murger. He concentrated on the few genuinely romantic and tragic elements in the novel to create a work often called ‘opera’s greatest love story’. Leoncavallo tried to stick closer to the episodic, black-comic tone of Murger’s novel. The result was a more fragmented drama that vacillates between farce and tragedy, and which has never gained a firm hold in the repertory.

Nicolai Leskov’s chilling novel explores the boredom of provincial life and the suppression of women. Shostakovich focussed on the second theme in his operatic masterpiece. He depicts his heroine Katerina as an intelligent, lonely, passionate woman surrounded by brutes: the cowardly Zinovy, the macho Sergey and the bullying Boris. He made Katerina a warmer, more sympathetic and less vicious woman than in the novel, and gave her some of the opera’s most beautiful music, such as the aria ‘Zherebyonok k kobïlke toropitsya’.

Henry James’s ghost story has fascinated readers and critics for generations –not least for the ambiguity of whether the ghosts seen by the Governess really exist. By giving his ghosts voices and having them participate on stage, Britten seems to imply that they are ‘real’ – though a degree of uncertainty remains. But certainly his ghosts have more definite personalities than in James, particularly Peter Quint, with his eerie celeste accompaniment and seductive speech. The scene in which the ghosts summon the children at night is particularly spine chilling.

Margaret Atwood had worried about how her award-winning dystopian novel, with its internal monologues, multiple locations and fragmented chronology, could be turned into an opera – but she was very impressed when she saw the premiere of Poul Ruders’s opera. Although Ruders and his librettist Paul Bentley cut some of the characters and reduced the number of flashbacks, they remained remarkably faithful to the novel’s plot and tone. Many critics saw the opera’s message as particularly relevant to the conflict-ridden early 21st century.

La traviata runs from 19 April–20 May 2014. Tickets are still available.Manon Lescaut runs from 17 June–7 July 2014. A small number of tickets are available, and there will be 67 tickets available on the day of each performance. The production will be broadcast live around the world on 24 June 2014. Find your nearest cinema here.La bohème runs from 9–19 July 2014. Tickets are still available.

]]>http://www.roh.org.uk/news/10-operas-adapted-from-books-from-page-to-stage%e2%80%a8/feed2Top films featuring opera 20-16http://www.roh.org.uk/news/top-films-featuring-opera-20-16
http://www.roh.org.uk/news/top-films-featuring-opera-20-16#commentsTue, 11 Oct 2011 08:53:31 +0000Chris Shipmanhttp://www.roh.org.uk/?p=6104The Royal Opera House cinema season continues this month with Adriana Lecouvreur which will be screened in over 700 cinemas in 22 countries. To celebrate we're counting down our top 20 films featuring opera...

20. The Age of Innocence (1993) Dir. Martin Scorsese featuring Faust

After Daniel Day-Lewis was done gallivanting around the Mid-West as a Mohican, he appeared in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence as respectable lawyer Newland Archer in this tale of high society in 1870s New York. Faced with the dilemma between his attractive but rather dull wife (Winona Ryder) and her more sophisticated and fiery cousin (Michelle Pfeiffer as a Countess no less), will Newland cast off the shackles of society's rules and give into passion or will he opt for a loveless marriage?

Whilst there aren't any diabolic visitors in Scorsese's tale, the choice of Faust for the soundtrack during the opening scene does reflect the torturous dilemma the main character does have to face.

Everyone's favourite pre-revolutionary fan of frivolity was brought to life by Sophia Coppola in this film which received a mixed reaction from the critics. The film was criticised for the stylised modernisation of the life of Marie Antoinette, played by Kirsten Dunst. Still, a trip to the opera for the Queen Consort provides a perfect excuse for the depiction of an extremely lavish operatic experience - a favourite of courtesans until the guillotine was wheeled out in 1793 by Monsieur Robespierre.

This particular clip features Rameau's Platée, although as a bumper prize for opera fans Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro appears later on in the film as well.

This over-the-top science fiction film from French director Luc Besson saw Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich fighting to save humanity from the camped up clutches of Gary Oldman. One of the most memorable scenes (filmed in our very own auditorium no less) featured blue skinned diva (voiced by Albanian soprano Inva Mula-Tchako) belting out ‘the mad scene’ from Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in a perfect example of blue bel canto.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mthh_okDjcU

17. The Killing Fields (1984) Dir. Roland Joffe featuring Turandot

Before Pavarotti bellowed the crescendo of Nessun Dorma into living rooms around the world, the aria was used in Roland Joffe's The Killing Fields - a film about photographer Sydney Schanberg being trapped in Cambodia during Pol Pot's Year Zero campaign of genocide. It's estimated that Pot's regime in the country claimed the lives of two million Cambodians.

The emotion of the aria perfectly counters the cold stoicism of Richard Nixon's news broadcast speech before it gives way to heart-wrenching footage of victims during the crescendo. As a word of warning, this clip does contain shots some viewers may find disturbing.

Like a filmic Tosca, The Talented Mr Ripley was filmed primarily in Rome and Venice, using many landmarks of the cities as backdrops for a murderous thriller. The film tells the story of Tom Ripley and his friendship (increasingly an obsession) with wealthy shipping heir Dickie (played by Jude Law).

In this clip, Ripley is dragged to see Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin by socialite Meredith Logue. The famous duel scene in particular affects Ripley, reminding him of his own murder of Dickie (in a rowing boat with an oar, if you're wondering...)

We'll be counting down the next 15 films over the course of the week. In the meantime, what are your favourite films featuring opera?